Then they were able to take that game away from me and replace it with something I liked far less. This is inevitable for any live service game; if not replacing the game you liked with something else, then its removal altogether so that no one can play it anymore in any form. It sucks.

This is a good, concise way to describe one of the subtler problems with these types of game. At least with some of them, if they’re sold without DRM, you can keep the version you like, but more often than not, those are few and far between.

Was hoping they might have added an option to Not Update/Skip Update or Never Update, or some other means to preserve the currently installed version. I don’t like Valve’s (and other tech businesses’) assumption that updates are always good.

The only games for which these update settings make some sense are always online, “service” games. Other games are largely fine to indefinitely delay updates on, or never update at all.

Mainly games built for replaying, so arcade puzzlers like Super Hexagon/Tetris Effect/Mixolumia/Equaline/etc, roguelikes such as FTL/BrogueCE/etc, or strangesims like Powder Toy or Vilmonic. Although even with those it’s more occasional, like when I’m uncertain of what I’m wanting to do.

obligatory but entirely sincere addition for those looking for palate cleansing games: Outer Wilds

and for those after a variety of others, in particularly no order, that may or may not come up as much:

• The Powder Toy
• Heaven’s Vault
• Vilmonic
• Intraquartz
• Interior Worlds
• Mixolumia
• Thousand Threads
• Mu Cartographer
• Hypnagogia: Boundless Dreams
• Jazzpunk
• Crossniq+
• BrogueCE
• Heart&Slash
• Umurangi Generation w/ Macro
• NeonXSZ
• Paradise Killer

But this is all from a flipside of a flipside, so each is as likely to appeal as repel, quick slide to catch clicks and clunks

maybe CDPR (hopefully the cp2077 release was just a fluke but we’ll see).

Cyberpunk 2077 was Witcher 1 repeat tbh, people forgot Witcher 1 was a mess at launch since they patched it up a bunch and some other stuff to try to make amends

Saw where you mentioned being into fighting games, action games, & shmups, so I wonder which games you find yourself bouncing off of more.

Along with reasons other have mentioned that are similar to my own (many games demanding a lot of time, better finding what games really click with me, etc.), I’ve also been put off by other details (hyper-monetization, big budget photorealistic & cinematic styles, etc.). Personally it’s less being into very few games, and more being into more specific kinds of game design and creative style, which are sometimes harder to find.

Like not being into drawn out progression systems immediately narrows one’s options pretty significantly, especially among many recent games.

Their previous game, In Other Waters, is also well worth checking out. Different style of gameplay, but similar focus on narrative.

When preserving culture is criminal, or punishable, ya might want to reevaluate your laws

In the meantime, people are gonna do it anyway 'cause why ask permission to back up and preserve your own stuff? And when the law finally catches up, some will be grateful to those that did so despite the earlier wrongful laws that tried to discourage them.

then some steam games would theoretically also be exempt because they don’t use steam drm.

I think the main difference that would arise between these and GOG would be the provision of installers. Even though some Steam games don’t use its DRM, they’re still reliant on Valve’s servers and an online connection for installation. GOG games are reliant on CD Projekt’s servers and an online connection for installer downloads, but upon download completion, one may install and reinstall games even while offline.

That’s a critical difference in digital distribution, in my opinion.

What would be really great is if companies could calibrate their reward structures based on what’s going to make players happy to log on, rather than trying to trap them into racking up the maximum amount of time in-game.

I haven’t played video games in awhile, so I don’t think I’m burnt out on them, which may make this a matter of differing mentality…But might it not also help to reevaluate whether a game should rely on a reward system/structure to entertain people to begin with?

It seems like these reward system designs are largely unsustainable without constant upkeep, in some part given that the rest of a game built around them often lacks sufficiently entertaining gameplay systems independent of them.

this is too perfect

You might look into either the OnePlus Nord N20 or N30. N20 had an AMOLED display like the S10+, whereas the N30 has a LCD display but high refresh rate. I’m not entirely sure but I think the processor specs are comparable, storage and RAM definitely are.

I know someone with a N30 and they’ve had good experience with the battery life on it so far, albeit they also aren’t heavily using it either. Here’s a little comparison chart.

…I’m concerned they may not recognize that the microSD slot is at least one of the nice selling points of their phones. With so many other phones tossing out microSD cards and headphone jacks, what beyond the price point remains to set them apart?

I guess there’s the gesture controls for quick camera or flashlight use, but the former is undercut by these being budget phones with mediocre to poor cameras. Also with the devices being larger it makes the gesture controls feel a little more unwieldy compared to when you were using them on smaller phones.

It’s a bummer, as I’ve otherwise appreciated their phones as cheaper, close to vanilla Android options.

Unfortunately as far as I’ve been able to find, those seem to be two of the main open source options (besides some AI TTS stuff, but I can’t seem to find Android versions of those yet). Nevertheless, I did a little digging and found you’re not alone in thinking RHVoice is on the quiet side, which led me to someone pointing out that you might try editing the config files and adjusting the volume values there, supposing you haven’t already.

The person that submitted the issue never came back to mention whether or not that did the trick for them, so best of luck!

All of the sites I linked to offer digital downloads of purchased music to play locally, so yes! I specifically sought these out because I prefer to have local files analogous to owning physical media, as I really don’t like perpetually renting media (i.e. subscription services).

I tried Amazon but I was having trouble finding albums or songs to download specifically. Has to be my mistake since I see it recommended everywhere. Amazon Music is just a streaming service as far as I know?

I don’t use Amazon for music much myself, but last I did, I think the way I found the download options was to search for the albums themselves as if I was trying to buy a physical copy, which much like books and other stuff, will often present a digital purchase option when available.

I stopped using it because it just felt way clunkier to deal with, which was even before they got into music streaming if memory serves (or at least, before they had prioritized it).

For buying music, besides the big names like Amazon/iTunes, you might consider:

7digital UK or 7digital US, if in neither country, I think it should try to point you to the relevant storefront for yours if they have one.

Qobuz, which appears to be available in more countries.

Bandcamp for indies and experimental music.

The first two have a good mix of major labels and indies, so are probably your best bet after Amazon/iTunes, meanwhile Bandcamp is great for more niche and potentially upcoming artists. So far as I can tell there isn’t really just one storefront to go with for buying music unless you’re okay with the aforementioned big names.

I was looking into smaller form factor phones awhile back, and an interesting feature I noticed some of them had was a programmable button.

I don’t know that programmable buttons on phones are that niche, but it’s certainly not common either so far as I’m aware, so this super simple feature would be wicked imo. I’d also really like if more phones just stole Motorola’s gesture interactions (e.g. quick twist for camera, firm double-shake for flashlight, etc.).

Also, uh…Speaking of small form factor phones, I don’t know if that counts as a feature, but it’s one detail I’d like to see come back, or flip phones with separate screens (clunky, sure, but better than the screen eventually creasing imo).